>> ^marinara:

this is actually very possible, you smartypants would know this if you watched star trek.
In the episode "I, Borg" the crew develops a virus that operates on the visual processors of the borg, infecting them with a "topological anomaly" that could destroy the collective.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/I_Borg_(episode)

They should have just told the Borg "this sentence is false". Works every time

this is actually very possible, you smartypants would know this if you watched star trek.

In the episode "I, Borg" the crew develops a virus that operates on the visual processors of the borg, infecting them with a "topological anomaly" that could destroy the collective.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/I_Borg_(episode)

Tags for this video have been changed from 'vi hart, sillyband, stop motion, choppa choppa' to 'vi hart, sillyband, stop motion, choppa choppa, topology' - edited by hpqp

3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

*isdupe>> ^rottenseed:

this is just a portion of a video that has already been posted on here
I say dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Outside-In

>> ^xxovercastxx:

I wonder if you could paint the whole face, wire the mask up with soft circuits and then connect to an arduino or something similar to run a programmed animation loop. I suppose you could make the animation random but still symmetrical pretty easily, actually. It's just a matter of whether the soft circuits themselves generate enough heat or if something will need to be added.


Well that thermochromic ink is pretty nifty (with the fabric/acrylic ink base). It's been around awhile--like "Mood Rings", but like @blankfist says, "It's Awesome!", due to the application an idea this guy used (now I've got to see if "Rorschach" in the movie uses anything like this or just flat-out uninspired CGI). Imagine using a wider or more controlled version of the thermochromic ink with something like meta-materials; that will come out soon enough (the neater stuff is military only here in the US I would assume). It was found recently that the meta-material molecules set themselves up automatically into Möbius symmetrical setups or "M.C. Escher" topology. If you combine the paint (if possible) afterward, I'll bet you'll be able to get some literally eye-popping effects. Maybe just not the type the military would want. Especially, if you can adhere the "ink finish / lacquer" to the inner portion of the (typically, meta-materials are aiming for "see-through" optics--which is why the topology and structure is very interesting) meta-material.

Really off-topic after this:

Using what @xxovercastxx said, adhering it (maybe with multiple type of thermochromic inks--giving it a far wider chromatic range, at varying temperatures) internally and using the meta-material you might be able to go from invisible to Abrams Tank to Porsche. You'd have to insulate the inner layer somehow to give you very fine control over the temperature or perhaps you could just flat out use electricity to change the colors. I'd imagine changing a thermochromic ink from reacting to temperature to electricity (or hell, anything kinetic: sonic waves, magnetism, etc...) wouldn't be very hard as they are closely related in the first place. You could essentially use light if the inks are responsive enough and it doesn't require a "non-stop" wave of photons; if you could make it behave like a switch that would be perfect. Then throw in some nano-technology with atomic manipulation and you'd have something incredible.

Hell, I wouldn't put something like that one the battlefield; it'd be a damned work of art! Plus, it'd probably cost more than a full-wing of F-22s just to develop; but the stuff that would come out of a development project like that would benefit humanity for a long time.

<sarcasm>Nah, let's just keep building more military.</sarcasm> At least, I know a lot of scientists try to use our addiction to the "military-industrial-complex" as a way to GET some key technological advances made. NASA does the same thing, but they tend to be better at it per dollar spent.

Möbius Symmetry link goes here.

PS: I like to include M.C. Escher (painter--think Inception as well as August Möbius (mathematician; and famous for his Möbius Strip topology of a a finite(?) two dimensional plane twisted at one end (pick a corner ) then connect it to the opposite side (make sure "top" meets "bottom"). Adding electronics I'm sure will be, if not already, worked on heavily. Especially, as I said in military type technologies (cloaking armor, etc...) But, with these you could--with enough precision make an Abrams Tank look like an Edsel. Although shooting it will kill that effect fairly quick (although I'm sure mitigation of visual anomalies will greatly depend on angle-of-view and distance) --

"Hey! That Edsel has four and one-half wheels! Ford is outrageous; why would we by this lemon!?!" His cousin responds right after;

"Bob! I got no idea whatever your sayin!?!" "It clearly has four wheels on my side!!!". "I thought Edsels were black?"

Another off-topic bit about "Edsel(s)":
Not the doo-wop group (although, the group is related to the real "Edsel"; they changed their name after the Edsel came out to capitalize on the name recognition from: "The Essos") that my dictionary keeps telling me it is; "Edsels <--with the "s" is misspelled according to the THREE combined English dictionaries. WTF? Typically I try to only misspell when I'm doing something as above in the first sentence by "Bob", "sayin" is part of my colloquialisms for them. I know, I tried hard for that "50's" feel... Yes, this is also so far off topic that I should just blog it. Can one of the admins throw a gadget in for us to use in our posts--like this, to count the topic changes. Perhaps a grammar-Nazi™ one!. Done!

P.S.- I didn't check for continuity logic or reading comprehension (and at this length, it's always needed--as it can sound like buck-shot mentally). Take as is. That reminds me: I should make a "colloquialism" English dictionary add-on for Firefox with auto conversion and "by decade" setups. It'd be fun (there's probably one around already ).

Merry Christmas everybody.
Also, the mask rocks! I also added one-helluva-edit after thinking about it; it seemed worth the trouble to bring up.
So hopefully you read it and didn't feel like I was wasting your time. Long posts are like that.

Ah, sweet topology!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem#Cyclone_consequences

Sorry it took so long to respond, I had a busy weekend.

They are not simple probabilistic events, and they are operating off the same basic principles, that does not mean that systems do not have qualities which their component parts lack.

Does a piston have the capacity to convert petrol into kinetic energy? Does an internal combustion engine have this capacity? Which part of the engine imbues it with this power?

Systems are qualitatively different from their component parts, and some sets of systems, such as systems which decide, are qualitatively different from systems which don't

I'm going to need a definition of "decide" I suppose. It seems like you are dancing around these squishy intuitive concepts instead of having a specific physical distinction to point out. The amoeboid is composed of a lipid bilayer membrane riddled with intricate protein micro-machines that detect changes in the environment, and behaviorally compensate. To discount the intricacy of the mechanisms of genetic expression and chemical signaling that exist even in the simplest of eukaryotic organism is foolish IMHO. Many of the modern models of genetic expression, and compensation for environmental factors look strikingly similar to the connectionist network models of the brain. The computations are similar in the abstract.


You are anthropomorphizing the mold, it does move, this motion increases its chances of finding food, it survives/reproduces. It in no way displays evidence of doing any of this "in order" to accomplish some goal. If you want to suggest that evolution, as a system, displays intelligence, by selecting molds which move in certain ways, I would be willing to acknowledge that intelligence, not a consciousness, but an intelligence.

Well, more likely I'm moldopomorphizing us. What goals do we have that are ultimately distinct from survival, reproduction, and the general continuity of our species? Even something as seemingly unrelated as making music, or art could be cast as some sort of mating ritual. When you somehow separate our behavior from the rest of life on Earth it's as though you want to draw a barrier between us and them. You want to somehow separate us from the natural order. I hate to break it to you, but it just isn't so. We are just demonstrate the spatial heterogeneity of the second law of thermodynamics.


Why is context necessary for experience? What do you experience in infinitesimal time? Why should we posit some sort of experience which is entirely distinct from the type we claim to have?

I experience the moment. In fact, that's all I'm ever experiencing, although my sensation of it may run a little behind. I never experience my memory, I merely compare my experience to memory. Further, what I'm suggesting is not entirely distinct from any experience we claim to have. Some autistic individuals, for instance, report an extremely chaotic existence, in which causal models can't be formed as sensory modalities are not unified in the same way as ours. They are experienced as independent inputs, not reflective of a coherent physical world. Still, they experience it.

Physical laws are not obeyed, they are enforced. electron movements are completely deterministic, like billiard balls, they roll down hill, they don't decide if/when to do so.

Things can not be enforced without an enforcer. Further, as you've conceded the determinism of our brains, again, how are we not passively allowing the laws of nature to push us around? What exactly are we deciding?


I don't believe that you are claiming that electrons have tiny field sensors which feed into a neural network which analyzes them for patterns and then attributes meaning to them by comparing them to earlier similar sensation patterns. Perhaps you can state this more clearly.

No, I believe that by some other physical mechanism, likely involving quarks and particle physics that I admittedly have a poor understanding of, the electron receives information from not immediately proximal locations, and physically displaces itself to a location with more desirable properties given its current energy state. I don't see how that's different than cuddling up to a warm fire.


You seem to be positing that the structure of the universe is not topological, but that it is instead the consequence of 10^80 atoms all working on concert to decide what the laws of the universe are at this moment. If this is your thesis I am inclined to ask on what basis you think it is even vaguely likely that they would came to a consensus, such as they must to allow the functioning of a universe like ours.

Something like that , although I still don't like the word decide. I don't necessarily think they do come to a consensus. It's just that, as with an attractor network, or similar guaranteed convergence dynamical systems, certain macroscopic states are just more likely than others, despite chaos at the subordinate level. The reason I'd rather drop the word decide is because I don't necessarily want to open the door to something like free will. To cast it in a "God" metaphor, I imagine more of an omniscient God, than an omnipotent God.


Please provide some basis to believe that there is a phenomenal experience.

I can't other than to refer you to what I presume you to have. I could suggest focussing on your breathing, or what have you. I can point you towards literature showing that people that claim to focus on their consciousness can perform physical feats not previous considered possible (for instance monks rewriting the books on the physical tolerance of the human body to cold). Otherwise, I can't. I will say this, however, I take it to be the atomic element of inductive reason. The natural "laws" you are taking as primary are secondary. There is a simple reason for this as Alfred North Whitehead pointed out. If suddenly we were to observe all bits of matter floating away from one another, and were to confirm we were not hallucinating, and perhaps have the experience corroborated by our colleagues, it would not be the experience which was wrong, it would be the laws of nature. Experience has primacy. Matter is merely the logical consequence of applying induction to our particular set of shared experiences.


And that will persist as long as we are not talking about anything. You say "X exists". I say "What is X?". You say "You can't disprove X". And here we are talking about nothing.

I told you, in the best english I can, what X is. It's the qualia of phenomenal experience. Now I can't provide you with direct evidence for it, but I can tell you that nearly everyone I talk to has some sense of what I mean.


You must be using an alternate form of the word "believe". How can someone believe something, and simultaneously be completely unwilling to assert that it is a fact?

I take the Bayesian sense of the word. All probabilities are subjective degrees of belief. I adopt this degree of belief based on anecdotal experience and generalizations therein. None of this would be accepted as evidence by any reviewer, nor should it, and thus I wouldn't want to risk my credibility by asserting it as fact. I can believe some hypotheses to be more likely than others on the basis of no evidence, and in fact do all the time. That's how I, and all other scientists, decide what experiment to run next. I should not, however, expect you to believe me a priori, as you may operate on different axioms, and draw from different anecdotal experience. Thus, I would not feel compelled to assert my beliefs as fact, other than in so far as they are, in fact, my beliefs.

>> ^bmacs27: How are our actions not "probabilistic events?" The amoeba is operating off the same basic principals.

They are not simple probabilistic events, and they are operating off the same basic principles, that does not mean that systems do not have qualities which their component parts lack.

Does a piston have the capacity to convert petrol into kinetic energy? Does an internal combustion engine have this capacity? Which part of the engine imbues it with this power?

Systems are qualitatively different from their component parts, and some sets of systems, such as systems which decide, are qualitatively different from systems which don't

It's moving matter in order to seek out food, and even flexing its pseudopods along the shortest path between food sources in proportion to their delivery frequency.

You are anthropomorphizing the mold, it does move, this motion increases its chances of finding food, it survives/reproduces. It in no way displays evidence of doing any of this "in order" to accomplish some goal. If you want to suggest that evolution, as a system, displays intelligence, by selecting molds which move in certain ways, I would be willing to acknowledge that intelligence, not a consciousness, but an intelligence.

Why is memory necessary for experience?

Why is context necessary for experience? What do you experience in infinitesimal time? Why should we posit some sort of experience which is entirely distinct from the type we claim to have?

Electrons are "comparing" electric fields when they settle into a state, otherwise they couldn't obey their physical laws.

Physical laws are not obeyed, they are enforced. electron movements are completely deterministic, like billiard balls, they roll down hill, they don't decide if/when to do so.

As far as I'm concerned an electron is sensing an electrical field in the same way I am sensing visual band EM.

I don't believe that you are claiming that electrons have tiny field sensors which feed into a neural network which analyzes them for patterns and then attributes meaning to them by comparing them to earlier similar sensation patterns. Perhaps you can state this more clearly.

I just believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of matter.

You seem to be positing that the structure of the universe is not topological, but that it is instead the consequence of 10^80 atoms all working on concert to decide what the laws of the universe are at this moment. If this is your thesis I am inclined to ask on what basis you think it is even vaguely likely that they would came to a consensus, such as they must to allow the functioning of a universe like ours.

It's the sheer fact that there is a phenomenal experience, not the particular nature of those phenomena.

Please provide some basis to believe that there is a phenomenal experience.

You've presented me no evidence that I should only expect phenomenal experience in a complex organism, as you have no test for phenomenal experience.

And that will persist as long as we are not talking about anything. You say "X exists". I say "What is X?". You say "You can't disprove X". And here we are talking about nothing.

"I believe that P(X) > P(!X)". Something you shouldn't really care to contest,

You must be using an alternate form of the word "believe". How can someone believe something, and simultaneously be completely unwilling to assert that it is a fact?

Well, space-time coordinate of one of those space-time manifold charts (covering the space-time manifold) is one object that you certainly can "travel" back and forth(remember Godel formal PDE's solution for Einstein equation ). However , what realy counts and play the role of the Newtonian time in general Einstein relativity is the unique proper-time of a given event !(this can not be back!). Note that still remains a problem to "adjust" colectivelly the proper time of several geodesics associated to the motion of several particles moving in the back ground of a given relativistic gravitational field (The twin paradox has not been fully understood !).Let me explain better : In the Einstein framework , one gives a certain energy-momentum configuration (the "Sun") (mathematically a tensor of rank two in relation to the Local dipheomorffism space-time manifold group) in the (tensorial bundle) of space-time manifold :a object from the beginning possesing solely a differentiable topological structure and after that (and if compatible with the manifold topology-Chern /Gauss theorem constraint, Riemann completeness ,etc..), one determines the topologically compatible local metric structure of the smooth space-time by means of the famous Einstein Equations.If everything is smooth from a geometrical point of view , one starts the prediction of the "falling" bodies trajectories in this gravitational field throught the solution of the Boundary-Value Sturm liouville like problem associated to the geodesics non linear equations (you should know the beginning and the final point of the falling body trajectory into the space-time ,not the initial point and its "initial velocity" as in Newton Equation).Now one can make further steps on the Einstein program by exchanging the mater-energy Einstein's source by boundary ad-hoc conditions simulating point sources -delta sources-(not dipheomorffism covariant) ,like the Schwartz-Schild solution for Einsteinian particle motions around the Sun), and thus leading to a rich mathematical universe ( astronomical and astrophysical/cosmological observable ?)

Let us put in a correct perspective quantum string theory for TOE. Firstly it is important to remark that a full understanding of what is really Quantum Mechanics is far to be completely understood in its foundational aspects ,althougth its huge operational-quantitative success.For instance, even in the usual non relativistic quantum mechanics , certainly the notion of electronic orbitals in N-electron atomic physics appears to be a mathematical suitable approximation for the full N-electron atomic wave function.On the other hand in Quantum Field Theory , this ad-hoc choice of what is free and what is interaction is not so "ad-hoc", at least in the QFT (perturbative) scattering sector: free in and out fields are primary objects producing physically observables free N-particles (lorentz invariant!) wave functions-so perturbation is building around them and carrying with the formalism all notions of renormalizations , dispersions relations etc.. .Now quantum strings : Strings are supossedly observable for us mainly through scattering among its excitations by means of an already fixed sigma-model two-dimensional quantum dynamics taking place in the somewhat ficticious purely two dimensional string parameter space-time, where are operating two scales of interaction : one is entirely ruled by the intrinsic string topological genera and other governed by the extrinsic space-time coupling constant , namely : The Regge Slope parameter. So string theory for TOE is a proposal for pure S-Matrix "Heisenbergnian" on-shell "theory" for all particles scattering in Nature (including gravitons). Now the theory's "granus salis" (points not completely grasped-at least for this reader !): Back ground fields are fixed extrinsic classical field configurations fully determined by the imposition of conformal invariance for any genera (which certainly does not affects the intrinsic 2d UV-theories'behavior,but affects its IR intrinsic behavior as a 2d QFT) and at any order in the Regge Slope coupling (all these conformal invariance phenomena quite specific to Polyakov's action proposal , possibly not for a Nambu-Goto string action reformulation of TOE).And at the same time , they are expected to be Schwinger sources (even quite non linear) for the string excitations and to be functionally differentiated in the string path-integral later .Another point is related to Kaluza-Klein Theories -It appears that quantum geometrical theories appear to be trivial QFT theories when used to describe scattering in space-time extrinsic manifolds of higher dimensionality (lambda four scalar QFT is expected to be trivial for D strictly greater than four!). As a conclusion : at most Strings are useful theoretical labs for a fully understanding of what really is Quantum Mechanics (SchrodingerX HeisenbergXEinsteinXNelson) , if there are no experimental tests for its predictions .By the way,space-time supersymmetry still remains solely as a theoretical lab in Particle Physics, nothing more!.

Well , it appears to me that string theory is a interesting attempt to "quantize" the space-time manifold (added with suitable supersymmetric structures ).Everything in higher dimensions become reduced to two-dimensional quantum field path integral models "living"on the string chart manifold (the intrinsic two-dimensional "string space-time").However , people impose dipheomorffism invariance on this intrinsic string parameter "space-time" which unfortunatelly get mixed with 2D conformal invariance , when one uses the sigma model Polyakov' action to assign "energy" for these "quantum -fluctuating extrinsic /observable higher dimension space-time process (quite different from the more geometrical Nambu-Goto string action ).In order to solve this problem one thus impose full sigma model conformal invariance by restricting that all strings Schwinger sources (the string higher dimensional field back grounds-including the own extrinsic space time manifold dimension!)to lead to a vanishing beta function for the sigma model Polyakov action at any perturbative order of the new universal coupling constant-the String length scale/Regge parameter.This produces an apparently well defined (?,and about the infrared 2D cut-off remotion on the perturbative Feynman calculationson the intrinsic string space-time ?) 2D Field theory for the extrinsic space-time quantum energy action, besides of fixing the string Schwinger sources to satisfy the usual Einstein-Maxwell-etc field equations at one loop and the extrinsic space-time dimension and the classical manifold topology of the extrinsic space-time to be fixed, when one has supersymmetry (Spin manifold space time structures,etc..).At this point , one has an apparently well defined quantum -mechanical framework to evaluate numerically scattering amplitudes (including quantum gravity!-the old dream ) to compare with the experimental results.That is the problem on this new quantum-mechanical framework : as far as I know nothing has been matched with the usual qed,qcd,etc results!(anomalous particle magnetic momentum, deduction of the asymptotic freedom in QCD ,The Higgs mechanism on the weak sector ,etc.

>> ^EDD:
Surprising and sad. It's really short though, I wonder what the general context was and also what he followed that up with..?
Anyway, I hope the day arrives soon, well within my lifetime, when scientific method and resultant fact aren't feared and disputed as something contradicting the idea of a creator. It's just plain wrong to compare the two, because science doesn't claim to have an answer to this particular question (yet) as it's based on the set of laws that just didn't exist before the beginning of time (the Big Bang). The laws and rules of our existence are indisputably set and they're here whether we like them or not; by defying them (imagining the occasional 'miracles' and expecting divine interventions) and defying the need to study and understand these laws, one is hindering our progress as a civilization - usually because one is accustomed to and wants to maintain the current status quo (i.e. they're well off) and is afraid (or purposefully intimidated) of change.
All the ancient nonsense that was made up to "explain" the unknown should and probably will eventually be discarded just like the heliocentric model was accepted by (the majority of) the sane world, and all that would remain afterwards would be folks that have been made believe via indoctrination. And when we'll finally be rid of this final despicable abusive parenting malpractice (and I do believe there will come such a day), we will have freed ourselves from one of the most oppressive shackles in our species' history.
Now there's a day full of tears of joy I am so looking forward to!


Except science doesn't deal with the main element of the question people pose with life. Science doesn't deal with truth, only observed trends which can't even be called facts as far as I would define a fact. A fact is a certainty, and I define certainty as perfect knowledge that is total security from error. This can never be achived with sceince as it deals with percived phenomina and not noumenon. Kant was the one who ended up saying that the limmits of reason open up the doorway to faith.

I am not an saying science is useless or anything, it got us to the moon, and other neato things. But it doesn't ever have a claim to truth, or as you would put it facts.

Moreover, the more we learn about the the "laws" that govern all that is around us, we find that it has no certainty in the quantum relm at all. Things do not play by any set of rules, and indeed, it seems random in nature. Thus overuling any model that could say with true certainty that it had discovered the facts of the univerce. The fact is, that science doesn't deal with facts and has no method of proving things true, only methods of proving them false.

Might I remind you that sciece doesn't even have a proper explanation for gravity or even more simple, mass and how it is created. Moreover, those are things that are the basis for all other things built on top of them and yet they go unanswered. Science is the new abuse in it scope of what it says it has answers to and the relm of life that it holds to have answers for.

once again I'm all for science, being a scientist myself (as my frequent mispellings should indicate ), but it will never replace the faith element by Kants own admissions. (I view Kant as the father of empirical thinking, but there are others like hegal and hidigar that point out some of the main problems with the limmits of reason)

edit, or ya, and on topic for this movie, his views on evolution shouldn't have anything to do with his revolutionary ideas on getting back to the small government topology. Completely irrelvant just as what his faith is or isn't. Unless now anyone accociated with faith is now automatically a moron; in which I find to be an very bigoted way of thinking and not conforming to the so called tolorance that I keep hearing people claim should be the order of the day.

I love studies of video games. I spent a month or so trying to create a topological map of shadow of the colossus. I'm not into SSB, but I dig this kind of thing, so upvote from me. I think that is one of the reasons I am so fascinated by speed runs. What is the fastest that is possible in theory to win a given video game. A month ago, I would have said that the recently made 10:29 speedrun of mario 3 was impossible. Now it has been shown to be possible. Four years ago I never would have believed that the 11 minute mark was possible.

Stuff like this is awesome.

Didn't they make a topological model of Kari's butt in one episode?